1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for geographic information display, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for displaying direction and position information of a portable terminal, wherein geographic position information of the portable terminal itself is displayed on the basis of a compass direction and a global positioning system (GPS).
2. Description of the Related Art
When people travel to unfamiliar cities, mountains, islands, oceans or so forth, they may not fully enjoy the freedom to travel because they don't know their way around well. For this reason, a traveler must require at a local tourist information center or be fully aware of travel information about the region before embarking upon traveling in an unknown region. However, the tourist information center cannot provide perfect information about topographic and planimetric features of the region. In addition, for example, in the case of climbing a high and difficult mountain, the traveler is liable to be disoriented due to his/her strange surroundings. In this regard, it can be said that tourist information or a map itself cannot ensure smooth traveling.
As an alternative, it is possible to utilize a navigation system that includes a CD-ROM, which stores map information and a GPS receiver. However, such a system is bulky and usually hard to carry. Also, a GPS receiver having a display device, without the CD-ROM information may be used in traveling. The GPS receiver has a problem in that it has no functionality of providing a traveler with exact direction information indicating the four compass directions while the traveler is moving. In addition, the GPS receiver cannot provide a third person with geographic position information about a site where the traveler having experienced an accident is located, causing a problem in being rescued.
Currently, with the development of the communications industry, common personal portable communication terminals, for example, portable terminals such as cellular phones, CDMA or PCS based mobile telephones, and personal digital assistants (PDA), may be used for detecting position information in an easy manner and transmitting the position information to a remote rescue center. In the United States, a portable terminal is defined to basically provide position information for Emergency 911 use, and next, such a function will be applied to all portable communication terminals. Meanwhile, Cellular Communication Industry Association (CTIA) defines such a function of Automatic Position Identification (ALI) of portable communication terminals, recommended by Federal Communication Commission (FCC). According to the definition, a terminal with a GPS receiver is required to provide accuracies of 50 m for 67% of emergency calls and 150 m for 95% of calls.
However, even such a portable communication terminal with the GPS receiver fails to provide accurate direction information about the four compass directions from the current site. This is caused by the fact that a GPS signal transmitted from a GPS satellite does not contain the direction information. The portable communication terminal having the GPS receiver built therein can simply transmit GPS-created information, which can be easily recognized only by a E911 center, to a rescue center or a control center which needs the position information. Namely, the portable communication terminal does not display an image of a substantial map, accurate position information and the like. For this reason, it is anticipated that the utility of such a terminal for travel and tourism purposes and the like, is low.